Web Exclusive: Media Guilty In G-20

The way the main stream media has covered and promoted the lies surrounding the G-20 in Toronto this summer makes one believe that the nightly news has become nothing less than one more commercial. What passes for journalism is no more than a slick campaign and makes one wonder if any of what is reported on your nightly news or major news papers is true at all? I have even known people who tell me they get their news from a late night comedy channel show and I can’t help but think they are getting more truth from that than they would from the network news these days.

The hype and spin that is used to control the public’s perception of what happened at the G-20 in Toronto is a text book example of how to totally control what the population believes, while not reporting the truth of what was really going on, all without having to tell bold face lies at the same time. This holds true not only for the reporting of the G-20, but in almost everything that is reported (or just not covered) in the news. A classic example would be the way the Main stream media covered the first court appearances of over 300 people arrested at the G-20.

Last August when these people had their first court appearances a large number had charges against them dropped. The reason for this was because most of the people charged had committed no crime. These people were arrested for engaging in legal peaceful protest or just being in the wrong place when surrounded by police. Yet when the media reported on the court appearances of these people charged with bogus offences such as public mischief and assaulting police, the media presented us with pictures of burning police cars and masked “Black Block anarchists” breaking windows. Even though none of these people were charged with those crimes and probably were not even at the scene of these crimes, the impression that the media plants in the mind of the public by showing these pictures are that the people in the next scene or picture going into court are the ones who committed that crime. This is akin to showing pictures of a rogue elephant trampling a crowd while telling you a story of how the circus is coming to town.

The distortions the media used in misleading the public around the events of the G-20 also can be seen in the language used. When showing pictures and film clips like the ones described above, the media without exception referred to the violence or violent protest of the G-20. The truth of the matter is that smashing windows and destroying property is not violence but vandalism. By using the word violence instead of the word vandalism the picture brought to your mind and the way you tend to think about what happened changes your perspective completely. Make no mistake there was plenty of violence, Not on the part of the protesters but on the part of the police who blatantly assaulted peaceful protesters while arresting and Kettling them. Of course this too went unreported.

A very large part of the distortion is also what the media does not report or what they under report and simplify. The G-8/20 meetings were a conference of world leaders that disrupted Canada’s largest city at a cost of a billion dollars, without looking it up can you honestly say that you could tell your neighbor what was discussed, decided and agreed to at this meeting? Can you even tell me what was talked about at the G-20 meeting that wrapped up last month in Korea? Did you even know that meeting took place?

For weeks there has been wide spread rioting and protest in Europe, Clashes between police and protesters in Greece, England and Ireland and yet this goes grossly under/not reported on your nightly news and hardly mentioned in your news papers. When it is mentioned again the spin machine is hard at work here too. I have heard more in the last few days about the snow fall in Europe than the wide spread political unrest. So what is this political unrest in Europe about and what is being talked about at these G-20 meetings that the main stream media is not talking about? When they do mention it they simply call it austerity measures. According to Wikipedia the definition is:

Austerity is a policy of deficit-cutting, lower spending, and a reduction in the amount of benefits and public services provided. Austerity policies are often used by governments to reduce their deficit spending while sometimes coupled with increases in taxes to pay back creditors to reduce debt.

The media would have us all believe that countries like Greece and Ireland (And Ours) have for too long been spending too much on things like education, hospitals and old age pension plans. That social programs and spending are what’s bankrupting our nations and that only prudent spending and tax increases will balance the nations books and restore the prosperity we enjoyed just a few short years ago. This too is one of the lies the main stream media has been feeding the people. The truth of the matter is the money that our governments should be spending on these programs is now going straight into the pockets of the banks. The admission for these countries to join the G-8/G-20 in the first place was to stop the practice of issuing their own currency though their national banks and to borrow it instead off of private banking interests all in the name of globalism. Because of the large interest charged on these loans (deficits) the whole country (all the people in it) become the property of the private banks that are now calling the shots. So much for democracy, it no longer has any meaning under this finical system.

So why would a so called independent main stream media be complaisant in this scheme, this finical ponzi game? Because, they are no longer independent. All of the main Stream Media here in Canada and everywhere else for that matter have been bought and taken over by the same supra corporations and banks that have bought and run, both the main Stream political parties you get to vote for in the sham elections. Media in Canada are primarily owned by a small number of companies, including CTVglobemedia, Canwest, Rogers, Shaw, Astral, Newcap and Quebecor. Each of these companies holds a diverse mix of television, cable television, radio, newspaper, magazine and/or internet operations.

Under globalist P.M. Brian Mulroney the media ownership laws in Canada were changed to allow large corporate conglomerates to consolidate all the privately owned media outlets in the country. Today all the news you get outside of the internet is tightly controlled by a small handful of companies. For example, in 1990, 17.3% of daily newspapers were independently owned; whereas in 2005, 1% were. The same is true for television and radio news outlets.
At one time the founders of many of the free nations of the world foresaw the dangers of a fifth estate that may fall under the influence of a group of men that may wish to take over a free society and made laws so the control of media ownership would not fall into the hands of a few. That was the whole reason why the CRTC was created in Canada in the first place! Today because of globalist policies almost all media in Canada and the world is now in the control of the very same people who wish to control you, your money, the way you think and perceive the world around you.

In June 2006 a Senate Standing Committee on Transport and Communications gave it’s final report, it expressed concern about the effects of the current levels of news media ownership in Canada. Specifically, the Committee discussed their concerns regarding the following trends: the potential of media ownership concentration to limit news diversity and reduce news quality; the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and Competition Bureau’s ineffectiveness at stopping media ownership concentration; the lack of federal funding for the CBC and the broadcaster’s uncertain mandate and role; diminishing employment standards for journalists (including less job security, less journalistic freedom, and new contractual threats to intellectual property) nothing was ever done, this report was just one more piece of paper your government wasted money on.

So I ask you, who were the bad guys at the G-20 and why are you allowing the controlled media to dictate the way you perceive what really happened there? The revolution will not be televised!

Published since 1963, Canadian Dimension is a forum for debate on important issues that face the Canadian Left today, and a source for national and regional politics, labour, economy, world affairs and art.